James Anderson

London, Jan 02: England’s spearhead and ongoing Ashes striking bowler James Anderson has said that, he learnt a few tricks of how to keep the batsman guessing everytime in which direction the ball will swing from the Indian strike and swing bowler Zaheer Khan. This few tricks helped James to be consistent wicket taker bowler and has transformed into England’s leading pace attack in the last few years. James Anderson, who played a crucial role in England’s retaining the Ashes revealed that, Zaheer Khan’s trick of hiding the ball till the last moment, so that batsman cannot find which way the ball will swing, has been very effective for him and this he learnt when he toured in England’s tour of India in 2008.

“Few years back we toured India and in that series Zaheer was very smart enough having this trick of hiding the ball, so that the batsman keep guessing the direction in which the ball will swing and this same method I picked it up from him,” Anderson said. He said that besides Zaheer, he also watched many of the other great international stars which helped him to become a very good bowler and came out from his last poor performance in the Ashes four years back. “Even Mohammad Asif’s talent of how to seam the ball and hit the deck hard and encourage the ball to swing in both ways. I watched him lot when he was in England tour and picked his few tricks also. He is undoubtedly a world class bowler and I took a good lesson from him about how to create good deliveries always,” Anderson added.

Anderson said that changing the body language is a very vital thing and I have done that so you can have success in swing, reverse swing and seam. “Body language is a huge thing especially when it comes to swing bowling,” Anderson said.

Tags: Ashes Series, Bowler, Cricket, England, James Anderson, Reverse Swing, Seam, Swing, Tricks, Zaheer Khan